Tag Archives: Celebrity News

The bodyguards filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against Depp for a variety of charges, including unpaid wages, missing overtime, wrongful termination and unlawful business practices, E! News stated. The men said they were exposed to unsafe working conditions and that they acted more like babysitters and chauffers than security to Depp and his family and friends.

The plaintiffs, Eugene Arreola and Miguel Sanchez, said that one of their main duties was to protect Depp from his own vices and that the job was more about caretaking than protecting the actor from the public.

The lawsuit said that Arreola and Sanchez were originally hired to protect Depp through Premier Group International, but they began work for the actor directly in 2016, the year that his financial problems began to escalate. They said that while working as his in-house security from May 2016 to January 2018 they were not given overtime pay or breaks during their 12-hour shifts.

Kimye to the rescue? Kim Kardashianand Kanye West are paying the legal bills for Alice Johnson, who is currently serving a life sentence in prison on a nonviolent drug conviction, multiple sources tell Us Weekly.

“Kim read about Alice on social media and privately arranged for a high profile criminal defense attorney to be her lawyer, including paying her legal fees. Kim did this not seeking or wanting any publicity,” one source tells Us.

Kardashian, 37, initially posted about Johnson in October 2017.

“This is so unfair…” the reality TV star tweeted in response to an article about Johnson’s case.

Tyrese has had his fair amount of problems of late, not least of all an ongoing legal battle with his ex-wife, Norma Gibson.

But after posting a confessional video last week where he hinted that he needed a little help from his celebrity friends, it appears that Tyrese’s luck may have come back in.

In an Instagram post yesterday, Tyrese revealed that his mate Will Smith – the Fresh Prince Of Bel Air – and wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, have given Tyrese an eyewatering $5 million to help cover his court costs. That’s a casual sum to just pull out of your pocket and give to a pal. Lucky for some, eh?

“My wife kept the news away from me cause I’ve been on with lawyers all day but our family and our sister Jada-Pinkett Smith and my brother Will Smith just sent us 5 million dollars to help keep us afloat,” Tyrese wrote in a caption to a photo of him laughing with Will Smith.

“You guys asked me to get off and stay off the Internet now that my daughter’s legal fees will be paid!”

Last Wednesday, Tyrese had posted an emotional video in which he revealed his frustration about several issues related to his legal battle with Gibson.

Yes, Hollywood studios tend to be fiercely protective of their intellectual property. These studios will often sue over unlicensed merchandise in the marketplace. Usually, these cases go away quickly and quietly. The defendants tend not to have the resources to fight back. Settlements and stipulated judgments are the norm. Well, not this time.

On Friday, summary judgment papers came in a lawsuit that Disney has filed in New York against Nick Sarelli, who runs an operation called Characters for Hire, LLC.

Disney alleges that Sarelli has a “knock-off business … built upon the infringement of Plaintiffs’ highly valuable intellectual property rights,” including the fictional characters Darth Vader, Iron Man and Elsa and Anna from Frozen. Disney is upset how this company “provides unlicensed and poor quality appearances and performances” by actors dressed as “iconic characters for themed events, such as children’s parties.”

The lawsuit claims that the costumed actors appearing at these events and the advertising associated with this enterprise represent a violation of both its copyrights and trademark rights.

Anyone who has ever visited Times Square in New York City might wonder about the costumed characters taking pictures with tourists for money. The New York Police Department once even tried to get Disney to crack down. Disney didn’t take the bait, but for whatever reason, Mickey Mouse has put its foot down for Characters for Hire.

Who really owns the CG characters in blockbuster films like ‘Avengers’ and ‘Night at the Museum’? On Monday, a judge was told it’s not the studios.

Are some of Hollywood’s biggest movies from the past decade — Guardians of the Galaxy, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Deadpool and Night at the Museum, among others — all copyright infringements because they were allegedly created with stolen technology? The question seems outlandish, and yet, that’s exactly what a California federal judge was told on Monday in a case that can’t be shrugged off as a crank even if it is now treading on some fantastic territory including a scholar’s search for hidden codes in the Hebrew Bible.

Rearden LLC is the plaintiff. The firm was founded by Silicon Valley entrepreneur Steve Perlman, who claims to own software called MOVA, which captures facial expressions to create photorealistic computer graphic effects. Rearden also alleges its technology was stolen by a former colleague before eventually landing in the hands of a Chinese firm. After the FBI investigated economic espionage, Rearden sued this Chinese company and won an injunction. Now, Rearden is suing the customers of the stolen technology — Disney, Fox and Paramount — who find their blockbusters the subject of bold intellectual property claims.

In response to the lawsuit, the studios have contended that that the copyright, trademark and patent claims fail as a matter of law. This story will focus on the mind-blowing copyright arguments.

At this stage of the dispute, the studios can’t dispute the truth of the allegations — not only did they use stolen technology, they did so knowingly. But Disney, Fox and Paramount ask, so what? Whatever shows up onscreen is primarily the product of human input, namely film direction and an actor’s performance. The technology company simply can’t own the output.

“Indeed, if Rearden’s authorship-ownership theory were law, then Adobe or Microsoft would be deemed to be the author-owner of whatever expressive works the users of Photoshop or Word generate by using those programs,” wrote Kelly Klaus, attorney for the defendants, who also nodded to an 1884 Supreme Court opinion, Burrow-Giles Lithographic Co. v. Sarony.